Apple deliberately slows down iPhones after iOS update: Geekbench

Software updates are said to make your phones run faster and fix major bugs too. However, according to data released by Geekbench, Apple does the opposite. According to Geekbench, Apple has allegedly made changes to iOS that deliberately “limit performance” of older iPhone models “when battery condition decreases past a certain point”.

This was came into light when a Reddit user claimed that his iPhone 6s had been running slow and that the problem went away after a battery replacement. The user ran a Geekbench test before and after the battery swap, and the scores differed drastically.

“Many people might remember that iPhone 6s battery fiasco, which for many, was fixed with iOS 10.2.1, and that seemed to be the end of it. Apparently, the way it did this is by dynamically changing the maximum clock speed relative to the voltage that the battery is outputting, so that your phone can’t draw too much power and shut down.”

John Poole published an in-depth article after demonstrating and running few tests between iPhone performance and battery. The post said that analysis of the scores of iPhone 6s running iOS 10.2.1 when compared to iOS 10.2 shows a major difference in terms of performance. To put it simply, after the device got iOS 10.2.1 update in January, the performance of a percentage of iPhone 6s devices began to suffer. The effect of the update can clearly be traced when the device is updated to iOS 11.2.

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A similar comparison was drawn between iPhone 7 as well, the result suggests that Apple may have knowingly reduced the performance of some devices. Poole believes that Apple added a software adjustment for iPhone 7 with iOS 11.2, similar to what it did to correct the iPhone 6s shutdown issues with 10.2.1. He also predicts that Apple may have created a misleading “third state” of slower iPhone performance without any notification that could convince users to upgrade their devices earlier than planned.

Geekbench also notes that if the performance drop is due to the “sudden shutdown” fix, users will experience reduced performance without notification.